As we are all busy, Than too, I though I would record 3 distros install process...
Ubuntu Budgie
Linux Mint
BunsenLabs Thitanium ( beta) (some bug as it is a beta....)
My comments :
PICTURES and/OR Animations (important infos) " WHILE INSTALLING" :
I love Ubuntu and Mint " pictures during installation forcing the user to see important informations (Elive could show important Elive features, keyboard shortcuts, promote our forum / IRC, . promote donation,..... .So screenshot or animated gif, "DURING INSTALLATION'" and the user look at them while the installation is happening...Instead of waiting for some terminal windows.... If they are shown " AFTER INSTALL, the user will close those windows most of the time....
Bunsenlabs (more TECHI INSTALLER ) are using the default Debian installer... Quick and fast... But I like their Welcome (one window ) terminal window asking for questions ( customization). But it's more TECHNICAL, less " mainstream".
I like mint Welcome Window.
I don,t know what is possible or not with ELive, but I would like to open the discussion on the Pro/Cons of those Installer and see if there is something we could learn from them / implement what is best...
SCREEN CONFIGURATION : At the end 14min14s approx, of the Busenlabs installer, @Thanatermesis I am showing you how more simple is their ARANDR implementation.... it's not asking to create some config files... It's doing that automatically as most modern distros are doing when you configure a screen....
@Thanatermesis, As I pushed you hard to have a more modern FORUM Tool, I think that ELIVE'S INSTALLER, may be, also need to leave the 1990's style and arrive in 2020..... (joke) I don't won't to " insult your work"...
Thanks for posting those ....... Bunsenlab is nice in the way it just throws a fullscreen x-terminal in your face with the questions. It shoos away the command line haters at first tick.
Personally I'd have also opted for the step to use ncurses, like in the Debian or Slackware installer (ahhh, days of yore) but still.
Comparing the 3 there it's all calamares installers versus direct install scripts where Bunsenlab uses this terminal trick for configuration options.
By itself the Elive installer isn't that disimilar to the Bunsen questions other than that Elive uses zenity pop-ups for the questions.
So all considering I'd opt for a non-zenity approach for Elive (it's easy to code and run but visually very bland IMO) and I'd advise BunsenLabs to at least have some movies or pictures screening behind the terminal text.
I agree.... If not using some modern install, then "No popup", one terminal window asking questions ?
THough I would prefer a modern approach if we want to attract more less technical people...
why not? I found the gui pleasent, the support really good and the performance awesome. Not a cancer like lubuntu for sure or default ubuntu, they are for real
That would/could require partially rewriting the installer or maybe using the current bash scripts from say Python to be able to use more intricate GTK widgets ...... mhhhhh.
Well, to discuss this, is kinda obsolete
because @Thanatermesis made it several times very clear -
he is not in the mood, cuz of certain facts,
to invest in another installer or throw all his over a long time developed work over board.
Point taken (?!)
.
That's how it is and we have to deal with this.
nice busenlabs post-install features but we don't have nothing to envy from them, we have the same features in the elive installer in GUI (not terminal) and some of them automated / hidden too
good point, this was already planned (years ago) but never got the time to implement it, hopefully let's see if we can have it in the future, - I have just added it as a new task just in case I lost it in the tons of tasks accumulated over years
in fact it will be not hard to implement it sooner if we have volunteers for doing that, for it we have actually 2 simple requirements:
the python web-window tool made by @triantares (its the perfect app / tool for this purpose)
volunteers to create the slideshow with the messages, everything will be done from a powerful web GUI, I can set up this environment if enough are motivated people to do it
its funny (no, not really, its frustrating), how sometimes i read complains about things that are GOOD things in elive, but I assume that is because is not known how the things works inside, so im forced again to write long answers to explaining the details and the why's:
these "extra questions" has been added in order to improve elive with more features, and they are unique in elive making other distro's lack it
if you remember correctly @yoda, in fact they has been originally developed to make things working for your own case very long time ago when you asked me about multiscreens setups (if i recall correctly it was in elive 3.0) - and thanks to that, elive enjoys now of an amazing screens configurator with unique features that everybody are benefited with
so basically the point is: you can use in elive arandr just like any other distro too, but you will miss the extra features
So Elive created the own tool "elive-multiscreens", which is mostly automated and it uses arandr for the configuration part, plus:
if you configure your screens, these settings are remembered (that's why it asks to save your conf, and the WHY is explained in their dialogs)
if you boot with the same screens connected, they are configured to work that way before the desktop starts, preparing your resolutions to be set up correctly before your WM is constructed with its elements and places (arandr doesn't loads confs or has any smart way to manage them) - only in E17 ATM
so you don't need to configure your screens everytime you boot your computer, they simply work
if you don't have the same screens plugged, the conf is not loaded, allowing you to use your desktops dynamically compatible in both states (extremely useful when connecting your laptop to an external screen / traveling with the laptop)
if more than one screen is connected and there's no conf created yet, a questions asks to the user if wants to create a multiscreen setup, this is an auto-detection feature for those who don't even have idea that this is not possible
if users says "no", this preference is remember and so no more asked
smart fixes: unload the ecomorph module in case of the user is connected to multiscreens (since its bugged and not works good this way, fixing the users's desktop on the fly)
note that the 80% of these features are working only in E17 ATM
if you want to know more about what elive-multiscreens does, see: scite /usr/bin/elive-multiscreens , and if you want to improve it, that's the source too
so again, its a feature added over arandr, other distro's simply don't have it
yes it can be improved, there's nothing against that idea, i never oposed to it and in fact and im constantly improving the installer
AND:
no, its not possible to use another installer platform (which is inferior to meet the elive needs)
yes it can be beautified (and it has been, like the user creation setup in 3.0 VS beta's)
There is a downside to using a web-tool, in that it uses quite a bit of RAM (200Mb or more) depending on what is shown.
So this might hamper an install on a low spec machine.
I got stuck in the mud of a university project rn... You probably noticed i'm way less active on the forum at the moment... THe thing got out of hand we started with "yeah we just need to change this and this and then we will write the software documents and stuff". After 3 weeks we are at the 3rd up down rewriting I'm dying
exactly,
but stills better than a browser process (requires even more if im not wrong)
by other side the installer will take care that the user has enough ram to display it, otherwise it will be simply skipped / ignored, this is a good thing so that "welcoming messages" are purely an optional thing not required to install elive
... ah naaaaaaah
for real
but we don't have nothing to envy from them, we have the same features in the elive installer in GUI (not terminal) and some of them automated / hidden too 
we started with "yeah we just need to change this and this and then we will write the software documents and stuff". After 3 weeks we are at the 3rd up down rewriting 
